What to Expect at Your New Home’s Final Inspection

Your new home is a giant jigsaw puzzle, made of thousands of components, often assembled on your lot by teams of contractors. Each team completes a portion of your home’s construction, then hands off your home to the next team to continue the process.

To organize all of this, your builder will typically act as a general contractor and coordinate all of the specialized trade contractors who build your home.

Scheduling each step in your home’s construction is an art and a science — and each crew depends on contractors prior to their work. Your builder will set a timeline in place and monitor construction throughout. The foundation crew provides a solid base. The framing crew’s job is to construct a skeleton of your home that’s square and true. The sheetrock crew installs drywall, creating a smooth surface to hang kitchen cabinets.

In addition to scheduling and monitoring each team of specialized trade contractors, many builders provide homebuyers with one or more interim inspection during the building process.

No matter how skilled each crew is, how diligent the builder, or how thorough the interim inspections are, anything with so many components made by hand by human beings will have items that need attention at the end. That’s why your “final walk-through” is so important. Typically scheduled after all construction is complete — before you close and take ownership of your home — this inspection is an important opportunity.

The Walk-Through Inspection

As a buyer, you and your builder will typically walk through your new home together and mark items that may need attention. This helps the builder eliminate as many issues — both minor or major — as possible. This also gives your builder a better idea of how long the repairs may take.

Some builders perform their own final inspection before the customer walk-through, so minor blemishes, scratches and dents can be repaired before the buyer ever lays eyes on them. However, it’s inevitable that the buyer will find other issues that need to be addressed.

What to Look For in Final Walk-Through Inspection

As you and your builder conduct the final inspection of your new home, here’s a few things you should know and what you should be on the look out for. And remember, it is in your best interest to ask lots and lots of questions as you inspect the home with your builder.

Use Painter’s Tape to Mark Issues

One of the most important tools you’ll see on a final walk-through is a roll of blue painter’s tape. As you walk each room, you and your builder will look carefully for items that need attention — a bit of wood trim not painted, a missing cover on an electrical outlet, a crack in a tile.

If you or your builder find an issue that needs attention, you’ll tear off a small amount of painter’s tape and put it on or near the area. Remember, no matter how minor it may be, put a piece of tape on it. This creates the “checklist” of items that your builder will need to correct before you close on the home.

As a buyer, you should also consider using your phone to take photos of all the areas you put painter’s tape. This gives you the opportunity compare the before-and-after and ensure all of the items were completed.

Establish Timeline for Additional Work

After that final inspection, it’s key for you to establish a timeline for all work that needs to be completed. Ask for larger issues to be addressed before you close. Get agreement on when other work will be complete. Ask who’ll do the work. Some builders have a dedicated crew or staff to complete the checklist of items. Other builders may ask the contractor who did the work to come back and make the necessary repairs.

The difference may not matter to most buyers. Most owners just want to know what work will be done and when. For work to be done after you close, ask for appointment times that work for your schedule. Keep a record of all the items on your checklist that have been completed and others that still need to be addressed. This is where the photos you took during the final inspection will come in handy.

At Lexington Homes, a long-time Chicago area builder, “a number of quality control walk-throughs are performed by construction managers to make sure everything is okay,” says Co-Principal Jeff Benach. Lexington Homes also does two walk-throughs with buyers, one a week before closing to spot problems and another on settlement day. The latter, says Benach, is “to make sure the customer is satisfied with the fixes.”

Pulte Homes, which delivered 18,000 houses in the year 2019, does three walk-through inspections. The first is before the drywall goes up, followed by a quality check by various inspectors, and a “final tour” prior to closing with customers, according to spokesperson Valerie Delenga.

More typically, though, you’ll be asked to make your final inspection a day or two before the scheduled close on your new home. Afterwards, you will be given a list of the flaws — maybe a window that won’t open or a small crack in the drywall — which you and your builder find.

Some of the items on this checklist will be repaired right away. However, don’t be alarmed if they can’t be fixed immediately. Due to the scheduling of crews, it’s not unusual to waiting approximately 15-20 working days to get them fixed. However, emergencies such as a plumbing leak that pose a safety or health problem or lead to further damage, should be taken care of right away.

List Additional Problems

You’ll also likely be asked to make a list of any problems you discover after you move in. Some builders ask for a list in 30 days, others at 60 or 90 days after you move in. Whatever the timing, it’s recommended that you don’t call your builder with the list. Instead, mail or email your checklist so that these issues won’t be lost in translation. Remember, the person answering the phone is not usually the one who handles call-backs.

In addition, you may be asked to submit another list in the 11th month of your occupancy, before your builder’s one-year warranty on workmanship expires. By this time, your house should have stopping moving — settlement and shrinkage are the major causes of problems like nail pops or a creaky floorboard.

Realize, too, that most of the problems you experience will be minor irritants that you can live with until they are repaired. Things like hairline cracks in the concrete, or windows or doors that don’t close precisely are cosmetic defects that won’t interfere with your livability. In contrast, major structural defects that must be addressed right away are very rare for new homes.

Overall, says National Risk Manager Paul Thomas, just 1 percent of new homes that they cover experience a major problem during their 10-year warranties. That’s just 10 houses per 1,000 built, about the same percentage of houses which experience major fire damage.

After Move-In: Read Builder Manual

After you move in, read the manual or documentation that many builders provide that explains how to take care of things in your new house. How to and when to change air or water filters, for example, or why the grade of the lot slopes away from the house (for drainage), as well as why it should not be changed. Familiarizing yourself with the documentation provided by the builder will not only help you make your house a home, but it could also save you from experiencing many headaches in the future.

Lexington Homes gives its buyers a 38-page “Home Owners Handbook” when they sign a purchase agreement. The book, “Your Guide to the Use and Maintenance of Your Lexington Home,” also is online at the company’s website, as is Pulte’s warranty, seasonal maintenance and home-care guides. Lexington’s handbook “spells out everything,” says Benach. “Most people don’t read it all the way through, but they keep it to refer to later.”

Reach Out to Builder With Questions or Concerns

When you uncover an item needing repair or attention, ask when you can expect the fixes. Schedule a firm appointment time or at least a range of time. That allows for traffic or for appointments just prior to yours work where work may take less or more time than expected.

Your home can be your largest investment. Most builders understand and respect that. As in other areas of life, emotions can run high if an appointment is missed or if items on your checklist appear to be neglected. Reach out to your builder and ask for firm answers or request for them to send somebody out to inspect.

Keep in mind that your builder probably constructs other homes (sometimes hundreds) each year in your city. A smart builder knows their company’s reputation for quality, customer service, timely response and completed checklist items is critical to their success.

If an appointment is missed or a promised repair is delayed, reach out to your builder with the facts. Carol Smith of Carol Smith Home Address, a Colorado Springs-based consulting firm that works with builders to improve their customer service, offers this advice: Be clear, stay calm, be polite. Use persistence and facts and builders are likely to respond positively.

Like most businesses, builders value positive word of mouth and recommendations. Providing a clear request and the facts is often all that you’ll need. If not, consider contacting the local Home Builders Association (HBA) if your builder is a member or your local Better Business Bureau.

For most buyers, checklist items will be completed — as will any issues noted at subsequent inspections — with a minimum of hassle. If you still have unresolved issues, escalate your concerns. Ask to speak to a supervisor or the owner of the builder.

If your issue is with an appliance or any product that was made by a manufacturer and installed by your builder or contractor, consider contacting the product manufacturer or local retailer/supplier. Oftentimes, this is the best route. And remember those owner’s manuals? Most of them spell out the details of the warranty process on the many products included in your new home.

While not always perfect, a builder’s final inspection, punch-list, and warranty process can offer you protection that you may not get with an older home. Buyers of preowned homes that are 10, 15, or 20 years old may encounter their own challenges — but lack the warranty protections that new construction homes offer.